A Book Talk and Discussion: Resistance and Unity

Details:

Resistance and Unity: The Chinese Invasion, Makchi Shangri Lhagyal, and a History of Tibet (1947-1959) by Tashi Gelek, Dorjee Damdul and Tashi Dhondup, and edited by Dr. Carole McGranahan. This book is inspired by HH the Dalai Lama’s ideas that each Tibetan refugee, especially the freedom fighters, should document their personal experiences to inspire and to keep coming generations of Tibetan well informed about the true history of Tibet. It is a history of Tibetan opposition to the Chinese takeover of their country. Starting with Shangri Lhagyal’s own narration of his life story, recorded on tape by his children before he passed away in 1984, this project grew from a biography of one man to a history of a country and its people. The book is dedicated to HH the Dalai Lama and all Tibetan freedom fighters. It is a condensed modern history of Tibet from a Tibetan perspective.

Speakers:
Dorjee Damdul was born in Tsawa Bomei, Chamdo, Tibet. At the age of sixteen, he left his hometown and made a ten-month-long arduous escape on foot across snow-covered Himalayan mountain ranges to exile in India so that he could seek a better education in free world. He attended TCV school in Dharamsala and Loyola College in South India. After graduating from college, he started his career as activist in a Tibetan human right organization in Kathmandu documenting the human rights of Tibetan refugees in Nepal. Dorjee Damdul received a Master’s degree in Communication from Grand Valley State University in Michigan (USA), and currently works as a senior editor for the Tibetan Service of Radio Free Asia in Washington, DC.

Carole McGranahan is Professor of Anthropology, History, and Tibetan Studies at the University of Colorado. She is the author of Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War (Duke University Press, 2010), the editor of Resistance and Unity (Notion Press, 2019), and many articles and essays about Tibet. Her research includes Tibetans’ colonial and imperial relationships with American, British, and Chinese empires; the Pangdatsang family of Tibet; the ongoing self-immolations in Tibet; and political asylum and citizenship in the Tibetan exile diaspora. She has been a student of Tibetan culture, history, and politics since 1989, and was a research associate at ICT from 1992-93.